President Trump was on Fox & Friends this morning and made several comments that are making waves in his ongoing legal troubles and those of his embattled lawyer and self-proclaimed fixer, Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen’s lawyers are in court today to argue that the records seized in the FBI raid are documents protected by attorney-client privilege and are asking for a special master to be appointed to view the documents. Their job has been made significantly harder by their client’s client.
Trump told Fox & Friends hosts that Michael Cohen handles a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal deals, also admitting that Cohen represents him in the “crazy Stormy Daniel’s deal” after previously denying he knew anything about the NDA negotiated by Cohen. Soon after Trump’s statement on Fox & Friends, federal prosecutors sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood citing the President’s comment as reason to expedite the review of documents seized in the raid.
From The Hill
“These statements by two of Cohen’s three identified clients suggest that the seized materials are unlikely to contain voluminous privileged documents, further supporting the importance of efficiency here,” Robert Khuzami, the deputy U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood.
The letter was delivered shortly before a hearing was set to begin regarding materials seized from Cohen’s home and office in an FBI raid earlier this month.
You can hear the President commenting on the case in this short video clip.
President Trump says Michael Cohen only handed a "tiny, tiny little fraction," of his legal deals.
"He represents me like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, and .. from what I see, he did absolutely nothing wrong." pic.twitter.com/BRAqc0Aszo
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 26, 2018
Stormy Daniel’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, also weighed in this morning on Twitter:
Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen previously represented to the American people that Mr. Cohen acted on his own and Mr. Trump knew nothing about the agreement with my client, the $130k payment, etc. As I predicted, that has now been shown to be completely false. #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 26, 2018
Thank you @foxandfriends for having Mr. Trump on this morning to discuss Michael Cohen and our case. Very informative.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 26, 2018
"Silence is often evidence of the most persuasive character." – Supreme Court Justice L. Brandeis in a landmark case nearly 100 years ago.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 26, 2018
From USA TODAY
Chicago-based lawyer and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said it’s “hard to fathom” why Trump has decided to keep talking about the Cohen matter, even as it complicates the pending legal cases.
He noted that Trump’s own tweets and rhetoric about Muslims have become central to determining whether the president’s immigration travel ban violates the Constitution.
“Unfortunately for the president,” Mariotti said, “most of his legal problems stem from the words that come out of his own mouth.”
Why It Matters
The President’s supporters like that he “tells it like it is” but there is a reason politicians are often lawyers and are cagey in their wording of answers. Telling it like it is is a very good way to get yourself in hot water when you are in legal jeopardy.
Beyond his own legal peril, and that of his “fixer’s”, the President’s words carry a weight that an ordinary citizen’s do not. As Mariotti points out in the excerpt above, Trump’s careless words impact legal proceedings – the travel ban, for one, and the Bowe Bergdahl sentencing for another.
This need Trump has to blather on to any friendly ear is exactly why he has no solid legal counsel helping him navigate the Mueller investigation and why every decent law firm has turned him away as a client.
It is notable that he also said, “Our justice department, which I try and stay away from, but at some point I won’t.” That not-so-veiled threat against Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller will be something to keep an eye on in the coming days and weeks.
